As you can tell, I'm not quite back into the rhythm of regular blogging. Part of it is that there really hasn't been anything to say. January has been busy, but not very interesting.
For example: the high point of my weekend was fixing the toilet. The flapper had warped, causing the toilet to run every 10 to 15 minutes, all day long. So, not just noisy, but a massive waste of water.
It was a fairly simple job, but one I hadn't attempted before. I always like to learn something new, even if it is just fixing a toilet. Last night was the first night in 3-4 months that the toilet hadn't run. It was so quiet it woke me up. Isn't it odd what you get used to?
The flapper that failed. Silicone flappers are the name of the game, don't get rubber!
Mostly, I've been cleaning things out, getting rid of detritus and planning for future projects. So I'm hoping to have more interesting things to report soon. But as of today, all I can say is that the toilet works.
Happy 2015. It's a new year. True, it's an arbitrary date, it doesn't really mean anything, but sometimes you just need a dividing line. Something that says "it ends here". And I really needed 2014 to end.
I'm not going to go into detail, but 2014 was painful for me, and I need (even if it is just symbolic) to end it and start anew.
This year, I'm not making any grandiose plans. I just want to get my energy flowing again. So, in the spirit of clearing roadblocks, I present my first accomplishment of the year. The hidden art collection.
George appreciating art
I took all of these out of the various nooks and crannies where they have lain hidden and protected from curious cats, and framed them. It was a two week process, because the larger ones had been rolled up for years, so I had to unroll them and weight them down for a week. They still roll a bit, but I'm hoping that now that they are framed, the paper will relax and become truly flat.
In case you are inspired by my example, this is a great time of year to do this. All the art supply stores are having big sales, trying to get rid of last year's stock. The frames and mats were all 40% off.
In my case, it helped my budget a lot that a few years ago, my mother took a course in framing art. Last weekend, when it was cold and rained all day, I took everything over to my parents' house where we measured, re-measured, remembered that it's been long time since any of us had to work with fractions, and finally got everything matted and in the frames. I've even hung them up.
As achievements go, it's not much, but you have to start somewhere.
My neighborhood has been overtaken by builders. When I moved in, there were a fair amount of empty lots, and of course I expected people to build on them. I just wasn't expecting it all to happen at once. There are 6 houses going up on my street, 3 of them directly across from my house. It seems to be contagious, because the people who live behind me have decided to build an addition onto their house, too.
There's nothing like opening your curtains and suddenly finding yourself face to face with the workmen you had no idea were there. It makes you a lot more diligent about wearing clothes. It's been noisy, dusty, and I've developed a new found appreciation of Norteño.
Perhaps it's better this way. Instead of the neighborhood being disrupted by individual building projects over several years, it's one big building spree and then it will be over. At the rate the houses are going up, I expect them all to be done by July 4th, if not sooner. Then I will have a bunch of new neighbors!
In the meantime, I'm concentrating on my backyard, which is looking it's best right now, because the jasmine I planted two years ago is starting to to fill in.
Pretty, isn't it? The cats remain unimpressed.
There are three of these, giving me the sweetest smelling backyard in the neighborhood. I'm hoping that over time, it will grow thicker, so that you can't even see the fence. Obviously, that's going to take a few more years.
Add a background track of circular saws, earth movers, and pounding hammers, and this is what my neighborhood sounds like.
For Christmas this year I was given bath salts (Calgon, take me away!) a fake fur afghan (matches the cat) and the best present of all: lumber.
Nothing makes a girl’s heart beat faster than a load of pine boards.
I have always dreamed of having my own library; a place of comfort and quiet, with good light, really comfortable chairs, and a table to work at. So when I bought my house, the first thing I thought was that this room would make a great library. (Did I mention that I have a vivid imagination?)
So since Christmas, my parents and I have been working on creating the first, and most crucial, part of this vision: the bookshelves. The original idea was to buy bookshelves from IKEA and just paint and trim them, so they looked built in. But apparently Dad wanted a challenge, so we have spent the last 2 months alternating between their house, my house and various hardware stores, trying to match paint, choose moldings, and buying/renting whatever tools we didn’t have.
It’s been a job. But finally, last weekend we reached the point of “close enough”. There are a few small, niggling little details, but they are the kind of things that no-one will notice (unless they are a professional) and to be completely truthful, we are so tired of this project that we no longer care.
Still, it looks good doesn't it? Now I need to find those comfy chairs.
As you all know, I like to cook. So I have a lot of spices in the house. But they are always sold in little jars that end up crammed onto a shelf with a lot of other little jars, so it's hard to see what you have. This is how I ended up with three jars of rosemary last year.
My favorite herb
I needed a spice rack. So my father, who has never met a woodworking project he didn't like, built me one.
This is no ordinary spice rack, I'll have you know.
It's custom made to fit not just the door but the spices. I'm not kidding, he measured the jars, so that the big ones would fit, the little ones wouldn't fall out, and the labels on all of them would be visible.
It's affixed to the door with 10 screws and hot glue, making it a permanent fixture. It's solid as a rock with the capacity to hold 63 standard size spice jars. If this doesn't add to the value of the house, I don't know what will.
I know this is rather silly, pointless bragging, but I'm excited. I have a spice rack!
Since I wasn't going anywhere for Christmas, I decided I might as well use the time to get some things done. So this past week I've painted the bathroom, organized the garage, and even bought (and put together) a bed frame to get the mattress off the floor.
the garage - before
The garage was officially a Christmas present from my brother. A present I suspect my dad had a lot to do with. (My father has been over here three times to measure the garage and sketch out potential layouts since I bought the house.) It needed to be done. I don't have a lot of stuff, but what I did have was just accumulating in piles along the walls, since I didn't have anywhere to put it.
the garage - after. It doesn't look like much, but it's really a big improvement
Now I have pegboard on the back wall, the pile of leftover bricks has been moved out of the way, and it looks more like a garage and less like an abandoned prop room. The nicest part about this was I didn't really have to do anything beyond move bricks and sweep up sawdust. My father and brother did the rest. My kind of project.
The other big project was repainting the master bath. I've been planning to change the color since I bought the house. It was a muddy brown, really, really dark and way too much. Last month I got a bunch of paint chips from the home improvement store, taped them to the walls, and decided on a color I liked. Four days ago, I bought a gallon of "Sigh" (a very pale blue) and painted one wall.
I hated it. It looked like breath mints.
Still, I was going to get this done. My backup plan was to paint it the same color as the bedroom: beige - boring but bearable. I bought a gallon of that and covered up the breath mint wall. It worked.
So I've spent the last three days working on the bathroom. It's more complicated than it sounds because it has three doors, a shower stall, a window, a vaulted ceiling and lots of little corners that have to be taped off before painting. And have you ever tried manipulating an eight foot stepladder in a shower stall?
Dad helped the day before yesterday, but it needs another coat before it's done. So I'm hoping I can bribe him into coming over and finishing the job. I've got everything I can reach, but I need someone tall to get the last two and half feet.
Then, I can put the towel racks back up, put the ladder back in the garage, rinse out the paint brushes, sweep the floor, wash the shower stall and collapse on the sofa with champagne, Chinese food and the feeling of a job well done.
